Police, government officials and public representatives have blamed “weaknesses” in the system that is failing checks on data in the online birth database to issue passports as many Rohingya refugees are found to have obtained fake certificates.

While tracing back the birth certificate provided by a recently arrested Rohingya man, Mohammad Faisal, for passport, monglanews24.com has found he had forged the document.

Faisal mentioned the name of the ward from where he had obtained the certificate as Lalkhan Bazar in the port city of Chattogram, but the code number for ward in the 17-digit ID number was actually of Rampur ward.

AF Kabir Ahmed Manik, the councillor of Lalkhan Bazar, says he did not issue the certificate.

The serial number of the certificate did not match those used in the ward, Manik told monglanews24.com.

It had Manik’s signature but used the ward secretary’s signature instead of the assistant birth registrar’s, which is mandatory.

“It was made by abusing technology,” the councillor said, adding that the signatures and seals were indeed fake.

‘WEAKNESSES’ IN ONLINE BIRTH DATABASE CHECK

The ID number of the birth certificate Faisal had provided, however, is real and it did match one in the online register.

It was impossible for passport officials to check its validity as the online database only shows names of the applicant’s parents and district, not other details like name of ward, Chattogram Divisional Passport and Visa Office Director Abu Saeed pointed out.

Officials at Mansurabad passport office, like others, check a person’s birth certificate by putting the ID number and date of birth in the online database.

In Faisal’s case, they saw the names of his parents and district, but the name of the ward Rampur did not show up with the corresponding code.

So, the officials could not find out that Faisal had wrongly mentioned Lalkhan Bazar as the ward.

Faisal, the around 20 years old Rohingya man who had travelled to Bangladesh from Myanmar with his parents 16 years ago, also submitted NID card and nationality certificate with his application for passport.

But he was caught on Aug 29 at the passport office in Chattogram’s Mansurabad after his fingerprints matched those of a Rohingya man in the database of the Myanmar refugees’ biometric data stored by Bangladesh.

“I think the weaknesses in the online checks are making such forgery possible,” Councillor Manik said.

monglanews24.com has obtained copies of some of the birth certificates provided by the Rohingya refugees caught recently while applying for passport.

The ID numbers of some of these matched the real ones, but there were anomalies between the data in the online database and those provided in the print versions.

“There are weaknesses in the system to check birth certificates online,” Manjur Morshed, an additional deputy commissioner at Chattogram Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, told monglanews24.com.

Though officials crosscheck different other data when they issue passports, a group of rogue people are taking advantage of “weaknesses” in the online birth database, the police officer believes.

“There would not have been any room for fraud if the online database showed the ward number, detailed address and photo,” he said.

POLICE, PUBLIC REPRESENTATIVES ALSO BLAMED

Two brothers were among the three Rohingya refugees arrested with Bangladeshi passports on them in Chattogram on Sept 5.

They mentioned in the birth certificates they had provided that they had obtained these from Noakhali’s Senbagh.

Md Yusuf, 23, his younger brother Md Musa, 20, and Md Aziz alias Ayaiz, 21, were trying to travel to Turkey with support of people of the Myanmar ethnic minority in Europe, police said.

But Mohrom Ali, a member of Village Police, said there were no brothers with the names Yusuf and Musa in the villages under Kadra union council.

The documents, including the birth certificates, provided by the duo bore signatures of Kadra Union Council Chairman Mohammad Kamruzzaman and former chairman Md Obaidul Haque.

Kamruzzaman said he did not sign the papers.

The serial of the birth certificates were same, though there is no scope of having two different certificates with the same serial number.

A copy of these certificates is always kept at the union council office, and the name of the applicant has to be mentioned in a register, but the one with the serial number used by the two brothers has no name on it.

Kamruzzaman said he had given the certificate, which had not been filled in, to union council member Jasim Uddin.

Jasim said he did not remember to whom he had given it.

An officials of police’s Special Branch in Noakhali told monglanews24.com that local public representatives, and SB officials responsible for passport verification were involved in such forgery.

As many as 54 Rohingya refugees were arrested at airport when they were leaving Bangladesh with fake passports, the official said.